


Perfect

by L0ew3nherz



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24074431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L0ew3nherz/pseuds/L0ew3nherz
Summary: Bushido is the Samurais code of honor. Honor lies in serving a master or greater cause, which is the terms "Samurai" literal meaning. The meaning of service lies in the willingness to risk your life for this cause or person. This story will bring these values to light. It also depicts what war does to people, to their minds. To their Bushido - their Warriors way.Inspired by The Last Samurai, directed by Edward Zwick in 2003.
Relationships: Callum & Ezran & Rayla (The Dragon Prince), Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Kudos: 2





	1. Callum

Note:

This story. was inspired by the last charge (and some other scences from the beforehand battle) of the Samurai troops in the film “The Last Samurai”, directed by Edward Zwick. The Samurai cavalry was decimated by two battalions of gunnery men before, but managed to broke through their ranks to attack the officer corps, which is located on a nearby hill with cannons and other weapons. While charging at them, the opposing royal Japanese army opens fire on the remaining Samurai cavalry with imported prototypical machine guns. The Samurai are almost slaughtered to the last. None of them could even reach the summit of the hill. Only Hanks character Algren and Ken Watanabes character Katsumoto remain alive, when the fire is finally ceased at least by a merciful officer of the royal Japanese army. He thereby refuses a command by the highest commanding officer and main villain of the film prime minister Omura and holds on to the main moral figure of the film: The Japanese codex of Bushido, which grants honour and a self-caused death to defeated enemies. Katsumoto, as a Samurai, immediately wants to commit Seppuku/suicide to die an honourable death on the battlefield and to avoid being captured by his enemies. Algren stops him for a few last moments and helps him up to exchange some final words. He assists Katsumoto, which is deathly wounded by several bullet wounds, to grab his Wakizashi. Then both simultaneously initiate the fatal stab, which makes Katsumoto twitch in pain and agony. The scene becomes silent for a moment, only the sad music in the background can be heard. Algren and Katsumoto hugging each other, while Katsumoto coughs painfully and looks over Algrens shoulder. The last picture before his death is a blossoming cherry tree, with the blossoms blown away by an upcoming breeze. This scene references to one of the former talks between Algren and Katusmoto in a Japanese sanctum, where Algren found Katsumoto investigating the cherry blossom on the nearby trees. After questioning Katsumotos behaviour and talking about the cruel life of a warrior and the sometime welcoming thought of death, the same replies that a cherry blossom stands for the way of Bushido.

“This happens to men, which saw, what we saw.. and then I always come to this place. To the place of my ancestors. And I remind myself, that we all die. Like these blossoms. And that life is in every breath, in each cup of tea.. in each life, that we take. That’s Bushido. The warriors way.”

Possibly reminding this talk in his last moment Katsumoto states that they are “perfect”. He then sinks to the side and repeats himself in a full sentence: “They.. are.. all.. perfect”. With this words Katsumoto dies, like the blossoms of the tree, each of them resembling one of the fallen Samurai, which served their beliefs of honour and cultural history and paid the ultimate price for this way of thought.

Algren himself sits nearby, his expression first full of sadness, which quickly changes to wonder as first the officer, which formerly ceased fire, and then almost the whole Japanese army bows down to respect the fallen leader of the Samurai. They are forming almost like a crescent shaped form around Algren and the now dead Katsumoto. The English translator Simon Graham, who watched the entire battle from a high hill nearby, turns and walks away in silence, while the soldiers are still paying respect to Katsumoto. Algren, which is stunned by the gesture, finally also bows his head to show gratitude to his fallen friend, formerly enemy. With this the scene finally ends. Algren is next shown to be the only survivor and now a captive of the Tenno himself.

This film scene was, except some of the TDP, by far the most impressive and emotionally heartbreaking scenes, which I ever saw in my life. Its perfect attitude to the desired picture of Japanese values like respect and honour, the perfect music by Hans Zimmer and the picture of likely more then thousand soldiers paying respect to a fallen enemy leader, by bowing before his corpse, impresses me to this day. I could, which will definitely make some people hate me, figure a similar scene at the end of the fifth season of The Dragon Prince, which I will try to draw in this short story. I will try to stick to the characters and their possible development till this point of this (hopefully never happen ing) story. 

This story will picture the events of a possible 10th episode of the 5. season. Its name: Perfect.

* * *

In between magic chants and perfectly drawn runes, he looks up into the sky. Except.. there is no sky.

Dark clouds dim the light of the ending day. Unsual for a desert. Crows and other birds circle in the air around an extremely loud and in total not comprehensible field of clashing swords, axes and other weapons. From time to time the dark clouds are joined by others of their kind, flying from west to east and from east to west. The difference is that these clouds rain dead, not life with thousands of arrows, that further cloud the already fading daylight. Shouts full of rage, screams full of agony and pain – an overall mixture of death and madness, that one cannot comprehend to other things than hell on earth.

Standing almost in centre of the clashing armies, a young man breathes loudly. He's surrounded by dozens of corpses. He can't tell anymore, if he's a human or a blood-thirsty beast. All over his sleeveless black-blueish robes is blood. Blood that matches the scarlet scarf tied loosely around his neck. He nearly lost it twice in the battle. He thinks back to the moment, when a Neolandian soldier nearly beheaded him and he was only able to dodge with his magical wings. The scarf, on the other hand, wasn't that lucky -it was nearly torn apart in two pieces, now only hold together by a loose thread. This leads him to the soldiers final moments - his death happened almost in slow motion. First anger and hate as his slash didn't connect, then in quick sucession surprise, pain, a lot of pain, fear.. and then, finally, grief. As over onehundred thousand volt of an _Fulminis Maxima_ electrocuted him,fried himto death.. the man wasn't in pain as it seems. Grief - it was grief, buried on his face, as he sank down to the other countless, faceless corpses on the ground.

"Grief..", Callum murmured. He dodged the next attack, an archers arrow.. but he wasn't concentrating anymore. Until this point of the battle he had done what was necessary.

Killing. Merciless and without a second thought. It was the thing that he and Rayla agreed on. 

Her faces comes to his mind, he clearly sees the images of the night before. Another night in the oasis. The oasis of the Midnight desert. The place where Xadias fate should finally be decided on the next day.

She was.. calm. Yeah, he stated to himself, that she looked calm on the outside. Truthfully speaking, he was aware that she was faking it - he knew her inner life better than his own. He knew that her bravado attitude was only there to compensate her own, very insecure self, buried behind this mask. But he also knew that she was right, her words were right. Rational. Just like Rayla.

"Callum", she stated, while framing his face with her hands. "Tomorrow is different. It's not an open conflict with a few men. It's not a battle between mages. It's war. It's like.. the nature itself. The things that are not strong enough will irreversibly destroyed. It's only killing or to be killed. There are no sideways, no other options. An battle is the nature itself. You understand?"

He nodded. Of course he did. Rationally he knew what she meant. That it was only you and your enemy. And if you survived, the next one. And the next. Until one side decided it was the time to surrender or flee. He told her this same thoughts and they swore an oath on that.

To be merciless. To be ruthless. To kill.

They weren't making oaths to survive. To see each other again. They both agreed that it was not the right thing. That there were no guarantees for that. That it would only distract them from their mission. Only make them weak and full of worry when they should be concentrated. They spared the weakness for this night. They both swayed between tears, memories full of joy and passion. They shared one last night together. They knew that it could very well all end the next day.

But now.. he wasn't sure anymore, if he could hold his oath. The griefing.. the sorrow.. the mens final moments weren't for his enemy.. were they?. They were for the ones he would lose?.. for the ones that would lose him? For the task he couldn't fulfill? For all this senseless slaugther around them?

For family? Friends? A wife? Good memories? 

"Nothing of this makes sense anymore. Nothing..", he murmured again.

**It cracked loudly and he looked up, like awakening from a dream.**

An arrow hung in midair, the tip slightly cutting his left cheek. His magical arrow-barrier stopped the projectile just in time.

While he was only slightly cut by the arrow, the pain seemed to get him back into Xadia, out of his head. But now it was all.. mechanical.

He was'nt thinking anymore. He was only functioning, like a machine.

_Fulminis Maxima -_ A dozen of burned corpses before him, some of them immediatly turning to ash.

_Aspiro frigis_ \- A couple of men frozen in their movement, with centimeters of solid ice around them. They weren't even able to scream or shout. Their faces, most of them burning with pain and anger, now conservated at least for a couple of hours.

As he advanced between the iceblocks, it stroke him again. 

It was almost like an reflection of himself. "A mirror", he thought as he stared at the faces of one of the frozen Neolandian soldiers.

It was a young man. Maybe around twenty, just a little older then himself. "He lost his helmet", Callum murmured. Every soldier wore an helmet. Without it, ruffled brown hair fell over his forehead. His face shown to be symmetrical, with a straight long nose, a round, boyish chin and big eyes with thick eyelashes. His teint was typical brownish, the only big difference between the two.

He stood there, looking into the mans eyes. Green against green. The same deep colour, almost like grass or leafs. The same expression.

"Lifeless", he stated. It looked lifeless. Lifeless and.. 

**Something fizzled through the air.**

He instinctivly ducked and rolled away. The sword crashed into the ice, with enough force to shatter the ice and the head of the man inside.

Callum then jumped to his feet. A ringing tone, like a deafening explosion, began to rise inside his ears, as he aimed forward to grab the handle of his attackers sword.

He then looked up and met blue eyes. A womans eyes. 

With his grip tightening around the handle, he spoke out what he just concluded.

"It's meaningsless. We are already dead."


	2. Rayla

A Flash.

Shock.

Disorientation.

She knew that she was alive. She felt it in her aching body. She heard it from the slow dripping sound of her blood, which came out of the big cut on her right forearm. She knew that she had to get up, if she wanted to survive. With this thought she slowly worked her way up, inch by inch.

As she stood tall she saw the destruction around her. An massive blast annihilated almost everything in her vicinity. She only got away, because she heard the crackling sound of the fireball behind her and jumped aways out of pure, battle-hardened instinct. These damn dark mages.. she would kill them all. 

She only noticed now that one of her blades got lost. Her grip tightened around the other one, her fist becoming white due to the pressure. It was the last present of Runaan before his death. He gave her his blades and with this her status as an official Moonshadow assassin.

* * *

She first rejected it, recjected him. His ongoing attempts to ruin her relationship with Callum, his stubbornness to accept the new, nearly peaceful world after being freed from the coin - their relationship was ruined. She knew that he wouldn't accept her now, not in the way she changed her values, her view of the world.. and her friends and relationship. He knew that she would not accept his teachings anymore and couldn't understand it.

They always were close, in a special way. Ethari had been the softer of the two, more like Rayla, but Runaans willpower, strength and passion to his duties always inspired Rayla. She wanted to be like him. She wanted to become, what he was.

But.. that was history at this point. It only changed, as the second war broke out. As Viren and the mysterious archmage Aravos stirred another conflict between humans and elves, west and east. They both fought side-by-side for nearly a year. They slowly rebuilt their relationship between all this death and chaos. She thought it was a very sarcastic change of destiny. Rebuilding somethin between all the destruction. But it worked for them. For Callum too, as he was often the gamechanger in the missions they had. Slowly, but surely Runaan acknowledged him - power was always an argument to change his mind and an young archmage was more powerful then most of the living humans, elvens and even dragons.

Two months prior to the present day, Runaan was sent on his final mission. The alliance saw an opportunity to strike Viren down, as he had an secret meeting in the destroyed Storm Spire with some elven conspirators. Aravos charmed even some elves to give into his dream and turn against their own kind. The Storm Spire was an excellent place for a meeting - high, therefore difficult to attack and filled with enough magical artefacts to conjure the most powerful dark magic spells he knew. His decision wasn't far fetched - he there once lost the decisive battle in the first war after Aravos return.

Before he left, he took her aside. In this particular moment after the blast, his words came to her mind, clear as the upcoming night.

"Rayla", he exclaimed with his typical calm, but sharp voice.

"I want you to know something. About me. About Ethari. About Callum. It is.."

He suddenly sounded unsure, which was completly atypical to him. He was always very selfconfident, it was almost impossible to argument with him. But not now.

He exhaled sharply and than continued. "It is us. Especially us. I know.. that I haven't been a good role model. That I dragged you into this life, that you certainly never wanted. A life full of fighting and killing. You are.. much more like Ethari. Extroversive, funny, you like people. I.. don't. I.. also don't like Callum. I can see, what you see in him. I can see that he is good to you. Good for you. I believe that he' maybe the one that will decide this endless conflict. But, Rayla.."

He stopped for a second time and looked her in the eyes.

"I'm part of this conflict. All my life was filled with the intent to kill humans, our natural enemies. Right now, I'm about to do, what I was trained for. And if I kill Viren, I know that I've killed another human. Took another life without hesitation. I am who I am. A killer without sympathy. An elf without a heart for humans. And I don't think that I can every change that."

She rembered the pain she felt in this moment. She knew that he was only being honest, but hearing this words from him was almost like an stab into her heart. He was silent for a moment, so was she.

He wanted to give her time. After a few minutes without a word, he drew his bow swords, his assassin blades, from behind his back. He handed them to her with an almost tender smile.

"It is about time, you know that. In many ways. I must depart before the moon stands high. You must take this blades as an Moonshadow Assassin of the Silvergrove. But you also have to remember my next words."

With this sentences, his typical seriousness returned.

"Don't follow me. In any way."

She looked up, surprised. He looked like he wanted to burn his words into her face.

"Don't follow your parents way. Don't follow the way of the elves nor the humans. Rayla.. do what you think is right for yourself. Use this blades to cut your way through every problem you face. Do it only yourself and the ones that you want to protect. If I can teach you one thing that doesn't lead to more sadness, pain and grief, like all my other advices and methods over all these years did, then it is this. You can only go on, if you don't rely on the past. Look forwared. See what you and your friends already achieved. When you want to bring it to an end, do it. But.. if you want to walk away from all this, the responsibility, the pain, the death.. also do it. The only thing that matters is your way of life. Don't.. don't let us pass our failures and mistakes onto your shoulders. Make your own. Learn from them. And then go on. Not backwards."

He then abruptly turned, with his last words his voice became unsteady.

"Right now this isn't a goodbye. You know that I've made this mistake with Ethari the last time. I won't let the same thing happen with you, Rayla."

And like this, he walked away, before she could respond properly. The only thing they later found the same week was a burnt sport in the throne room and an human hand with a blank rune-coin inside it. She cried a lot this day. But she didn't mourn over his death. She told Callum and he, who was naturally by her side, directly understood it. It was the tragidy of the situation. Runaans final talk to her. His acknowledgment of herself, Callum, the changing world. Runaan uncoined himself. He finally broke out of his prison of hate and despair, the hate of generations, but he paid the ultimate price. The price of freedom.

* * *

She cried out. 

Loud and full of rage. The sword was lost and with it Runaan. Everyone here was responsible for this. A price to high to 

These men and woman from the Human Lands weren't like the braindead, magically mutated soldiers, that never wanted to fight in a battle like this. Not like two years before at the Storm Spire. Not like the last battle.

All of them were now here. Conscious and with the intent to kill her. Her friends. Her family. Callum. For the sake of a man and an elf, both striving for power and control.

A control she wouldn't give them. 

She would give them only what they deserved.

Death. And Pain. And Destruction.

Like they gave it to Runaan. Etharie. Callum. To her. To everyone she loved.

With a battle cry she forced herself forward, against her enemies.

After a short time a red mist clouded her vision. One after another fell before her. She didn't care anymore.

Everything that mattered was death.

And she was good delivering it. She almost felt like an assassin. 

"Runaan would be proud. I'm making my decision. And I'm not regretting it."

And with this, she blocked another mans sword, countered and beheaded him without a second thought.

Behind her some crows were already falling out of the sky.

They typically waited for the battle to be cleared, but the smart among them couldn't miss a feast like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. I first wanted to thank you all for reading this FF.
> 
> It is my first one and especially my first one in english. Therefore, if the style and the grammar bothers you or makes the text difficult to read, feel free to critize at any time.
> 
> I also want to know, if I should include more like background information, for the motivations of the character in the battle.
> 
> I think, I pretty accurately described Raylas actions and the motivations behind them in the battle, but I maybe missed that on Callums part. Like the sensitive guy he is, I described him as dull and that apparently nothing matters to him anymore. Should I include a background motive for him, too? I certainly have some ideas that could lead Callum to lose his will to survive, aside from the terror of the battle. Please let me know!
> 
> Cheers and have a good day,
> 
> L0ew3nherz


End file.
